


the rivers of the sky are dry

by egelantier



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Chains, Crisis of Faith, Dehydration, Drought, Gen, Golden Age (Narnia), Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/pseuds/egelantier
Summary: The killing drought crept into Narnia on silent feet.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Comments: 30
Kudos: 60
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	the rivers of the sky are dry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChronicBookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/gifts).



The killing drought crept into Narnia on silent feet.

The summer began beautiful and golden, Narnia's forests and fields spread under the brilliant skies. Cair Paravel celebrated the victories of the previous year, the High King's brilliant campaign in the North and Rabadash's resounding defeat under Anvard; and the country sang and danced and feasted with her rulers, content and happy in her freedom, and if the heat got a little oppressive, the Great Winter was still fresh enough in Narnians' memory that nobody complained.

That is, nobody complained at first, busy with celebrations and the normal course of life. Some older riverside Beasts said that the winds tasted wrong and smelled wrong; some Dryads, more nervous than others, bemoaned the lack of rains. But griping about the weather was such a small, insignificant detail in the grand scheme of things. Never before had Narnia been so beautiful, so well-respected by her allies and enemies alike, so ablaze with life and joy. The rains would come soon enough, it was felt, and bring the end to all the murmurs.

The rains did not come.

They did not come and did not come; the winds blew hotter, weirder. Shribble dried down to a sluggish stream; Rush barely crawled its own bottom, full of dirt and sand; Glasswater Creek all but disappeared, shriveled in its bed. King Edmund, who always listened keenly to the rumors and whispers of Narnia, sent his messengers and his scouts all through the country to search for tidings, bad and good, and Queen Susan began writing careful letters to her contacts in neighbor countries, asking if they had the same bad luck with the weather, and Queen Lucy spent all her time with her friends among Dryads and Merfolk, trying to soothe their concerns.

The High King sat uneasy on his throne; and when the full scope of the disaster became apparent, he knew it not from his royal brother's scouts or from his royal sisters' words. He could see it with his own eyes; could see the Great River himself from Cair Paravel's towers, the Great River dried down to a mere shadow of itself.

* * *

The royal tent was a simple affair, since the High King and the Gentle Queen were deep within their own country, and their errand was one of mercy and aid, not pageantry. Only a pair of Leopards guarding the entrance distinguished its drab canvas walls from the handful of other tents, scattered on the outskirts of the Shuddering Woods. Even those guards looked far less splendid and ready to pounce than they ought to have. The royal train was at the final leg of a long and grueling journey around the country, and its members slept in their bedrolls, heart-weary and exhausted with what they'd seen.

Inside the tent, in the small hours of the morning, Susan woke up with a wildly beating heart and a bitter taste of fear of her tongue. She lay still and frozen for a while, trying to understand why the bedding under her was neither the cool linen of her bedroom in Cair Paravel nor the silk of her guest quarters in Tashbaan, and why the ceiling was so close and the air so arid and stifled. The heat-stirred headache drummed in her temples, omnipresent and insistent, and its low pressure brought her memory to the correct place. 

She had spent a month carefully, quietly emptying Cair Paravel's treasury to buy food and other needful things from the neighboring countries, careful not to tip them off to the depth of Narnia's disaster, since none but Archenland could be trusted not to seize their moment of weakness; and Archenland, while trusted and firmly allied with them by the ties of loyalty and friendship, was afflicted by the same sorrow. The food had come, and so, leaving their brother and sister in Cair Paravel, she and Peter were traveling around Narnia providing aid to all its citizens devastated by the drought.

Peter! A quiet sound floated to Susan from the other cot. She bolted to her feet, remembering in a flash both what had woken her and why she had insisted on sharing the tent with Peter instead of leaving him to the care of his page. She crossed the short distance to her brother's prone form, soundless in her bare feet, and knelt down to gently push the sweat-soaked hair off his forehead.

He made another cut-off sound, a bitter sigh through his tightly clenched teeth, and Susan called his name - quietly, and making sure to stay out of the reach of his arms. She, Edmund, and Lucy had all learned to be aware of this after Peter's northern campaign, for their High King had returned to them triumphant, victorious, bearing injuries and scars too old for Lucy to heal - and his nights had been troubled ever since.

But he did wake immediately after her call, his eyes alert and clear for any danger. Maybe too alert, the Queen mused, for they were in the middle of their own country, and their bitterest enemy right now could not be slain with a sword.

"Sister..?"

The queen rose from the edge of his cot, gathering her skirts. "Apologies for waking you, dear brother. My sleep was troubled."

"Understandably so," Peter said, hauling himself into a sitting position. "The reality of our subjects' suffering right now makes my dreams seem sweet in comparison."

She turned sharply to him because her brother normally loathed discussing the content of his dreams or even acknowledging their existence. They'd all tried to reach out for him - with gentleness, with cajoling, with barbs, with pleading - but even Lucy, who'd ever been Peter's favorite, had soundly failed.

Peter gave her a wry grin as if he was somehow capable of reading her thoughts. "Believe me," he said, "you do not want to know. And in any case, this journey…"

This journey, indeed; the rivers dried to trickles, the leaves on the trees browned and crackling, the roads choking in the dust. The children, Beast and Human alike, too quiet and too thin; the adults, likewise, full of quiet anger and despair. The river god of Beruna, coughing. The dryads, dying. The crops and the gardens and the livestock, withering.

"It was a truly brilliant piece of work, Susan,” Peter, ever fair, hastily continued. “Nobody could pull it off better than you, and all those stores will save a lot of lives. But it's not enough. Two or three more months of this disaster, and not all the gold in Cair Paravel will be enough to save the country."

The queen swallowed, for she agreed - but she had also learned to fear that note of determination in her brother's voice, for his own sake. "We cannot control the weather."

"Didn't we stop the winter? Is this not why we wish to consult with those in our kingdom who are best acquainted with the stars? Perhaps they'll tell us what can be done."

He rose to his feet, alert and full of nervous energy, and the queen averted her gaze. Her heart was full of quiet fears fighting for ascendance. If the centaurs should tell them there was a price to be paid for restoring Narnia's good health, she knew that all four of them would pay it without hesitation; no matter how heavy it was, and she knew from experience that all the true prices were heavy enough. But what, she thought, would it do to Peter - to all of them - if there wasn't one?

* * *

"Alas, Sire," Agrius, a stately, old leader of the centaurs of the Shuddering Woods, said with an air of grave regret. "We've been scouring the skies for answers, and there is no sight of undue influence and no evil to vanquish. We know that the winds coming from the sea and from the desert have changed their direction and strength; it might be the cause of our current misfortune.”

The High King frowned, deep in thought. "Before we left Cair Paravel," he said, "I talked to our royal sister, for she is the one who has the closest relationship with Aslan and the clearest understanding of his will out of us all."

(Queen Susan threw a quick and startled glance at her brother at those words, for she wasn’t aware of that conversation having taken place.)

"I hoped to know," Peter said, "if we've angered Aslan somehow, or failed in some duty; if there was something we ought to be doing. But just as you, she had no answer for me."

"It grieves my heart," Agrius said, bowing his white head, "to have no answer for Narnia's plight, Your Majesty. But droughts and disaster come, and sometimes there's nothing to do but meet and endure them with all the dignity we can manage." His people, scattered around him, nodded in unison with him - all but one.

The king bowed to him courteously in gratitude, but his face was grim and his lips tightly pressed. The queen went to him and took his hand, and he made a clear effort to smile at her.

"I'm afraid I'll make for churlish company right now, dear sister. Could we meet back at the camp? Perhaps a walk through those woods will clear my head."

"Brother," she said. "I wish you'd let me share your burdens, for aren't they my burdens as well?"

"That is what saddens me," Peter said, and kissed her forehead. "I promise to return soon."

He turned away from her and marched into the woods, his shoulders hunched, his steps too wide, and Susan, watching him go, felt her heart clench with sadness. Still, there was still work to do, and their retinue to organize, and so she marshaled her misgivings and went back to the camp.

* * *

Peter wandered awhile, and couldn't find consolation: the wood, solace of the heart in any other time, reminded him at every turn at the deadly affliction of his country. The trees stood skeletal, with their leaves curled up and browned, and the dry grass crackled mournfully underfoot. The birds were silent, and the streams did not fill the air with their silver chime. The king wandered, his eyes roaming around him in an unconscious hope of finding at least a small oasis of green, but all around him was dead, and burned, and silent.

Eventually, strength left him, and Peter knelt in the midst of what had once upon a time been a lush meadow, and was now a sparse, dry clearing. He knelt, his head down, his lips moving. A noise from the undergrowth alerted him to somebody's presence, and he whipped around with lightning speed, Rhindon in hand.

"Peace, Sire," said the centaur, stepping out into the clearing and opening his hands wide. "I'm Aiastes; I was a witness to your conversation with good Agrius."

Peter flushed, sliding his sword back into its sheath. "Apologies, my good Centaur; I was startled unduly."

Aiastes bowed. "It is I who ought to apologize for invading Your Majesty's time of contemplation. But I could not wait, for I have a piece of counsel different from the one that wise Agrius gave you."

"What would it be? Do you know something about the nature of this disaster that's hidden from the others?"

"No," the Centaur said. "But I have, perhaps, a different opinion about the means of alleviating it."

He walked around the clearing, touching the tinder-dry trunks of the trees with what seemed to Peter to be gentle grief. "Perhaps it's unfair of me," he said, "but it's the Dryads that I mourn and pity the most. Hungry children can be fed," - he made a deeper bow in Peter's direction - "and fields can be replanted, but the trees live for so long and die so easily."

"I understand,” Peter said, quietly. “I saw the dead orchards on our journey… A sight enough to break one’s heart.”

Aiastes turned to him, whiplash-sharp, the quiet clarity of his grief becoming sharper and rougher. "A royal grief is a dear gift, Your Majesty, but what can it accomplish? Can it repair what was broken?”

The king’s response was curt, and his jaw tight. “As our beloved sister says, we cannot control the winds, or summon the water from thin air.”

"But you did change the winds and the water with nothing but your words and deeds, Your Majesty. Or have you forgotten the story of your own ascension?"

Aiestes began pacing, sharply, Peter shifted in unease at his too-fast movements. To be wary of a Centaur, of all beings! For the thousandth time, he berated himself for the skittishness that his northern campaign had put under his skin. He tried to gather his thoughts.

"True, our reign meant the end of winter, but that was due to Jadis’s defeat, and her enchantment losing hold. Now Agrius tells us there are no similar villains holding the weather hostage, and in your own words, you do not contradict him, do you?"

"I do not," Aiestes said. "But in your own words, we can hear the truth spoken: that the witch Jadis possessed the power to control the weather."

Peter blinked. "Jadis is dead," he said. "I witnessed her death with my own eyes."

The centaur came very close now, leaning over Peter so they were face-to-face, and Peter's nerves were twanging like plucked strings. "No being of her power ever truly dies," he hissed, low. "If you, the High King, were to call on her - there are ways, and there are methods -"

His hands were on the king's shoulders now, squeezing with merciless strength, and they were the only thing arresting Peter's astonished impulse to withdraw. "To call on her will doom us all," Peter said. "By Aslan's grace, Aiestes, you know this is not to be attempted."

"Aslan," Aiestes shouted into Peter’s face, "great Aslan! Where is he now, when we're dying one by one?"

"Unhand me," Peter said, "and we will forget that those words were ever spoken. Your grief has driven you mad."

The centaur's fingers uncoiled, slowly; he lowered his head in despair, and Peter breathed out a sigh of uneasy relief. He turned around from Aiestes, unwilling for the centaur to see his face. “We’ve brought together everybody who knows how to conserve water or to keep the crops alive in arid air,” he said, willing his words to carry weight. “The country will survive, and...“

"No," Aiestes said from behind him, unheeding, and the hair stood up on the back of Peter's neck. "We will not forget." 

There was none of the earlier urgency in his voice, no tint of madness - just great, great sorrow - and yet Peter's entire being sang _danger, danger_ at him, and his hands once again found the hilt of his sword. He fought that uncouth instinct, turning to face Aiestes - and then a great force bore him up and slammed him face-first into the nearest trunk, and the High King knew no more.

* * *

A majestic oak tree had been killed by lightning long before the grandfathers of the grandfathers of the Talking Beasts now living in the Shuddering Woods were born. Its blackened corpse stood in a circle of old stones as decades trickled by, forbidding and lonely, its burned branches raised to the sky in either supplication or reproach. The inhabitants of the forest tended to avoid its clearing, as the tree seemed to exude the air of anger mixed with grief; and so it had stood, forgotten, until Aiestes - seized with a similar feeling - was drawn to it.

And so this was where he carried the High King, brought low by his strike, and it was to that tree that he tied the king with old and heavy chains, and by this tree he waited, patient and unmoving as the sun moved overhead.

Peter woke up with a violent shudder, straining to free himself, but the chains held him fast. He saw his sword, thrown irreverently on the ground next to his bound feet, and gritted his teeth in fury.

"Aiestes," he growled, "what is the meaning of this? Explain yourself!"

Even now he couldn't quite make himself believe that a Centaur would mean harm to his person. He half believed another being - a Hag, a Werewolf, an Ogre - would step out from the stones at his demands, and reveal itself as Aiestes' tormentor.

But there was nobody in the clearing but himself and Aiestes, and the Centaur gazed at him in sorrow but made no move to undo the restraints.

"I've told you, Sire," he said. "Aslan had clearly abandoned us, and it's your right and your responsibility to save your subjects from death and famine." He knelt at Peter's feet, gracefully folding his forelegs, and spread his hands wide. "A lot of time I’ve spent here in preparation for your arrival - hiding this place, warding it, laying down the words of power. I hoped you would come here willingly, for it’s ever been said that the High King cares for all his subjects and is willing to pay any price to keep Narnia safe, but…”

His voice was almost gentle now, cajoling; he talked to Peter in the voice of a kind but stern father or uncle. “I hoped to persuade you with words, Your Majesty, but you have forced my hand - pray forgive me! There’s still time for you to do it properly. Call Jadis back - renounce her tormentor - and I’ve made sure that her powers will be harnessed for Narnia’s salvation."

"You lived through her winter," Peter croaked; he could now feel the dryness of his throat, the sand in his eyes, and his joints, locked into immobility, were already beginning their insistent clamoring. "You must've fought with us against her. How can you suggest calling on her?"

The Centaur recoiled from him and roared to his feet, his noble features twisting in bitter fury. "You will reconsider, and you will call her," he spat. "Or you will die of thirst just as your country dies around you."

With a thunder of his hooves on the stones, he was gone, leaving Peter chained - helpless - and alone.

* * *

It took the High King some effort to wrestle down his pride and call for help. But even after he did, shouting in a voice that grew more and more hoarse by the hour, nobody came. Whatever magic Aiestes had laid down to keep his prison hidden worked all too well. 

Eventually his throat became too raw and painful for him to scream with. He had been thirsty even before his altercation with Aiestes - everybody in Narnia was rationing water, and being the High King just meant that his allotted portion was smaller than some others’ - but now, as the unmoving heat of the evening twilight flowed into the darkness of night, he felt as desiccated as a mummy, his tongue a piece of dried meat in his mouth. What was a mummy, anyway, and where had he seen one - if he ever had? Although he was unsure, the word felt appropriate to his state. 

He kept expecting Aiestes to come back, for the Centaur did not strike Peter as a torturer or a murderer. An obsession could sometimes take hold of a person, twist their thoughts; but surely the deed itself would prove too much, Peter thought? He regretted that he, with his clumsy tongue and his unhappy mind, had not been able to stop Aiestes before the attack. His gentle sister would’ve explained the water conservation plans better; his brother would’ve brought forth clearer logic; no Man or Beast or Centaur alive could resist being charmed by Lucy. 

But despite his hopes, the darkness came and brought with it cold and silence: no bird sang and no small animal scurried in the underbrush, nothing stirred beyond the circle of stone fingers surrounding the dead tree that had become Peter's prison; nothing could be heard except for Peter's labored breathing.

At first, the cold was a relief after the midday heat, and Peter welcomed the slight breeze and the absence of the sun. But very soon it became its own torment. The king's clothes were light, suited for a morning walk in woods dry enough to burn, not for a night out in the country; and they quickly proved inadequate to keep him warm. Very soon he was shivering, and then shuddering, jarring painfully against his chains and the rough burned bark of the tree; his teeth chattered with enough force he was afraid they'd break.

And then the cold brought back memories as unwelcome as they were intrusive. In his exhaustion, Peter eventually fell into a confused, painful daze, and within it, a different kind of cold found him, the cold of the frost and dirt and blood of Ettinsmoor. In its snowy fields he had never been able to get warm enough, despite his royal furs; back then, as the armies fought back and forth across the border, for months and months, there had been no space free of that discomfort.

His remembrances circled closer and closer - marching through the snow, climbing the icy slopes, sleeping on the rough ground, hushed, hurried war councils through the merciless blizzards, and the battles - he slipped in the icy slush, the snow half-melted by spilled blood, he crashed to his knee and the blow that would take his head off barely broke his shoulder, he fell - the giant over him, blotting out the sun -

With a hoarse groan of despair, the king wrenched himself back to his present. He tried once again to free himself from the chains, but they held too well. Susan, he knew, would move heaven and earth looking for him, once she realized his disappearance. But would she find him in time? 

There was nothing to it but endure and put his faith into his sister; and so, all through the night, the High King did. 

* * *

Back at the camp, the Gentle Queen briskly set the royal train to get ready for the last leg of the journey. For a moment she deeply regretted that Mr. Tumnus chose to stay in Cair Paravel and advise Lucy and Edmund instead of taking the journey with them. She was not close yet to any of her attendants, and she felt sorely in a need of a friendly ear.

There was no helping it; she berated herself to for feeling maudlin, and set herself to work. A Dove courier had caught up to the camp, bringing Susan a letter from the Therebinthia's sovereign that demanded her careful attention. The rumors of the drought had finally reached him, and while the letter was courteous and friendly, it read to Susan as if he was probing for weaknesses, for Therebinthia had always eyed Galma and the Lone Islands with a certain amount of interest. 

Susan, after long consideration, judged that this interest won't translate into violence yet, not with Peter's victory over the Giants and the battle of Anvard still fresh in everybody's mind. But as she knew they might have to rely on buying food from Therebinthia's stores, if the drought held, and so the return letter had to tread a careful path between the assertion of power and admission of the current misfortune. 

It took her a very long time to write; the queen hunched over her traveling deck, biting the end of her quill and being oblivious of the courtiers quieting their bustle around her so as not to interrupt her labors. And it might have, perhaps, been easier to craft, had her doubts not crept between the lines. 

She and her brother had not just delivered alms to the families affected by the drought on their journey. They'd talked to the oldest and wisest Beasts about the best ways of preserving and gathering water and protecting the fields and the forests, and arranged a network of messengers to keep the information flowing between different parts of the country. Susan had set up the meetings and assigned the couriers; Peter helped to dig ditches and mulch the fields. For all that it had been a lot of grueling, sad work, Susan did not begrudge or doubt it, and never had the same hope Peter held of the Centaurs giving them a different solution. 

But now, Susan could not help remembering Peter's words about talking to Lucy of Aslan's will, the way one worried a sore tooth. She had once dismissed her sister's visions of Aslan in favor of perceived practicality, and was to this day ashamed of her wilful blindness. Was she, perchance, committing the same mistake now? 

She could not find an answer. But she did finish her letter, and when it was folded and sealed, the queen raised her head and realized that the sun had beginning to set, and the early summer twilight was gathering between the trees. Susan frowned and looked around the camp, looking for the bright gold of her brother's hair, annoyed that he did not think to prod her out of her concentration in time for the camp to leva while there was still daylight. Did he _want_ them to spend another night in the Shuddering Woods? Was he hoping that the Centaurs would have a vision overnight?

But when she asked her attendants for Peter, she was told that the king had not returned yet. Susan sighed, her earlier worries for him returning in force, and sent a Leopard to find her brother by his scent and call him back to the camp. 

If only Lucy was there, Susan thought. Not that even Lucy could get their older brother to talk to them properly those days, but she at least had a knack of cheering him up - or, at least, for Lucy Peter would make an effort of appearing cheerful. Edmund, perhaps, could simply challenge Peter to a friendly sword fighting bout and sweat the tension out of him for a while. But Susan, who often thought she understood Peter the best out of all of them, felt as if there was a transparent wall between the two of them lately, the one she could not breach. 

She could at least, she decided, rising to her feet and giving the letter to the courier to be delivered, greet Peter and not burden him with her own doubts. For good or ill, they would be back in Cair Paravel in less than two days, and there will be time for rest and comfort, however scarce, the walls of their home a welcome relief to both her and her brother. 

But then the Leopard burst into the clearing, shouting and growling about blood, and the Gentle Queen knew true fear. 

* * *

The sun rose fat and angry in the cloudless sky and looked down at the small clearing. Two crows flew past it, used to skirting the space around the dead tree, and then wheeled back when they saw the body tied to the trunk of the tree. They weren't, of course, Talking Crows (much to the High King's misfortune), but they were as hungry and as thirsty as their talking brethren, and a chance of fresh carrion was worth the foreboding feeling the dead tree gave them.

They circled over the clearing, calling out to each other in rough caws, until finally the bolder one of them glided down and sat on the body's shoulder, angling for the first peck.

"Shoo," the body said, a rough crackle of the word, and the crow, startled, shot back into the air. But she and her friend did not go far; they alighted on the rough stone pillars surrounding the tree and prepared to wait.

At the tree, with a monumental effort of will, Peter dragged his head up and passed his tongue over his dry and cracking lids. "Not yet," he said to the birds, clinging to his defiance; and he knew that if he wanted to live through the day, he had to keep himself awake.

It was, of course, easier said than done; the thirst gnawed at him like a dog at the bone, rivaled in discomfort only with the discordant symphony of his joints protesting their immobility. Peter's heart beat frantically in his chest, tripping over its own rhythm. His tongue felt too big for his mouth, and his thoughts, dizzy and disordered as they were, felt too big for his head.

He no longer knew if Susan would find him in time; and, as the day wore on, more and more often he forgot where he was and thought himself captured by the Giants. He would hear their rough jeers and calls just outside the edge of his hearing, and jerk his head up to spit his last defiance into their faces - only to discover himself, over and over, alone in the clearing, with only the crows for company.

He was, perversely, grateful for their presence. He would've been grateful for Aiestes to come back and talk to him again. He started to think he would have welcomed a Giant torturer, whose malice would be less impersonal than this of the sun and thirst.

His shadow crept over him and began growing in front of him, twisting and wavering in front of his exhausted eyes. The last stirrings of the morning breeze died, leaving the molten heat of the day absolute. Even the crows sat silent and attendant, watching Peter with their beady eyes and not uttering a single caw. And in the silence and confusion of his inner turmoil, Aiestes' offer began haunting him.

Calling on Jadis was impossible; even if she could be subdued by whatever magical arts Aiestes possessed, he knew without a doubt that doing so would sunder him from Aslan's grace forever. He didn't have his younger sister's deeper kinship to Aslan, and had never presumed to understand the great Lion’s thoughts on every matter - but on that matter, he was crystal clear. To call on Jadis would doom him; would doom Narnia.

And yet, as the day went on - as he burned and shivered and bit through his tongue in painful search for any moisture, any small bit of relief - he wept, dry-eyed, for the Dryads dying of the same thirst, for the children swollen with hunger, for the grains dying in the fields and fish choking in the silt. Peter wept, and thought that he should've saved them all and that he was, perhaps, not unduly punished.

The crows, perched in their silent vigil, saw their prospective carrion twitch and whisper, cough and shiver, clench his fists. The younger and more impatient of the two made two more attempts and was repelled each time. The older, wiser and more tired, sat in patient, careful waiting, and saw no reason to hurry.

* * *

It was night in Cair Paravel, and the entire castle slept, from the smallest scullery maids and page boys to the leopards of the honor guard. Only the Owl sentries perched on guard towers carried out their duty - and, in his cramped cabinet in the tallest tower of the castle, so did King Edmund, hunched over his papers. The branch of candles next to him flickered, burned almost down to the candlestick; it threw the twisted, frantic shadow of the king onto the wall behind him.

Edmund, oblivious, continued his labors. The stack of reports before him came from all over the kingdom, from the carefully cultivated network of talking Beasts who were good at listening, watching, and noticing, and on whom the Just King relied to be his eyes and his ears in Narnia, and his advance warning against the threats of either White Witch followers or spies of the Tashbaan or anybody else who might do the country harm. But right now, no matter how much he dug through the reports, he could find no sign of intentional foul play. Red and Black Dwarves suffered alike; Werewolves died of thirst on the banks of dried rivers alongside with the Talking Beasts; Archenland weathered its own share of their disaster, and the Tashbaan, licking the wounds of the humiliation of Rabadash's defeat, was silent. If there was an evil mind behind the drought, it was too well hidden for Edmund's eyes to see - and pretty much nothing was, nowadays.

Edmund's shadow on the wall showed him hunching over, putting his head into his hands, but no one was around to hear the sign he heaved. Rarely had the Just King felt so powerless.

The door to the study opened a crack; the king's hand was on the hilt of the dagger by his side before he even raised his head. But he saw his sister's bright hair flicker in the candlelight, and relaxed.

Queen Lucy smiled at him and crossed the study, silent and barefoot. She perched on the corner of his table, and he couldn't help frowning at how exhausted she looked, her eyes red-rimmed, her lips chapped and bitten, the skin of her face stretched tightly over her cheekbones.

"You look as bad as me," the queen said, plucking the thought from his head with the ease of long practice. "It feels sacrilegious to say this, but the lack of water makes even Susan's grace diminish."

Edmund laughed. "Valiant you might be, but you only dare to say this because Susan is not in the castle right now, and Peter's likewise not here to defend her honor."

He didn't miss the way his sister's shoulders drooped at his jest, and wished he could snatch it back from the air between them. "They'll be back soon," he said, gently. "The Shuddering Woods is but two days' ride from here, and they're finished with their errand."

"I can't sleep," Lucy said. "I know you're right, brother, but - the dreams I have -"

Edmund said up straighter and swallowed whatever comforting words he had ready on his tongue. "Dreams?"

"I keep seeing Peter… Ah, brother, you must be right. The heat brews exhaustion of the mind, and feeds my fears."

"I'd agree with you, but we've had plenty of opportunities to learn that your dreams and fancies sometimes have heavier meanings, Lucy. Share with me?"

The queen scooted back further onto his table, heedless of royal dignity, and pulled her knees to her chest; the king twitched at the sight of her bare feet in the dangerous vicinity of his inkwell but kept his peace.

"It's not - I keep dreaming that I'm chasing him - we're somewhere that should be familiar, but all the paths are twisted and tangled - and just see him walking away, and I keep calling him, but he just melts into the darkness."

She twisted around to look at him. "To tell you the truth, I woke up in tears; I came for you to mock me out of them, not support them, Edmund. Trust you to be disagreeable!" Despite the joke, her voice was trembling.

"You know he loves you most," Edmund said, gently. "He'd never turn away from you."

"He's been turning his face away from us ever since Ettinsmoor," Lucy said, sharply, and the quill, half-forgotten in Edmund's hands, snapped in half.

A sharp rap on the window startled them both; Lucy jumped off the table and Edmund sprang up and to the window, throwing the casements wide open. An exhausted Dove swept into the room, and Edmund had to snatch her out of the air to prevent her from tumbling to the floor.

"Ms. Philomel," Lucy cried, recognizing one of Susan's courtiers. "What's happened? Hold, hold, let me find you some water."

"Your Majesties," the dove panted, her heart beating wildly against Edmund's palms. "The queen sent me - the High King, disappeared - gone a day…"

The king and the queen looked at each other, frozen, faces identical masks of astonished horror.

"As I told you, Lucy," Edmund said, finally, and laid the exhausted Dove gently in her arms. "It's never just dreams with you."

He strode to the doors, bellowing for the guards.

* * *

When the night fell, Peter did not notice; his eyes would not open anymore. Within him, within the slowly narrowing well of his sanity, he was trying to bargain.

He said, his lips moving soundlessly and his words garbled even inside his own head, "But if it was just me? The others do not know about this."

And, "If it won't be their fault?"

And, "Surely, only I would need to be punished?"

He was silent for a long time as shivers wracked him, scattering his words and breath. The night was silent; even the crows fell asleep, exhausted with their work of waiting. He could hear the small rustle of their feathers in the dark over the skipping beating of his own heart.

Confusion crept in again, this time merciful, stealing him from the ravages of his body; he floated through the cool waters of the seas around Cair Paravel, and listened to the mermaids singing underwater, quiet, quiet -

\- a cough exploded out of him; his abraded throat tore, and blood spotted the chains over his chest; he swallowed the blood greedily, revived by its salty taste. Anger came with it, molten and spilling over.

"Where are you," he shouted, straining in his chains again. "What can I do? You are not here!"

But the night was silent.

* * *

In the middle of the camp in the Shuddering Woods, Edmund alighted from the back of the Gryphon, stiff and frozen to his very core. He had spent the night and day on the noble Beast's back, trying to beat the wind, and hoped against hope to arrive to good news.

But the Queen was waiting for him, and judging by her wan, anguished face, his hopes were in vain.

"Susan," the king said, unsure if she needed him, at this moment, to hold her as a sister or to uphold her authority as a queen, and she solved his quandary by flinging himself into his arms. Edmund held her tightly, hiding her face in his shoulder and feeling her tears soak into the cloth of his doublet, and felt the familiar and fond mixture of love and fury for his older brother. Oh, Peter, he thought, how could you do this to us - and now!

Susan pressed her face into his shoulder, tightened her arms around - and then straightened, her face already composed, every inch the Queen.

"Thank you," she said, and, to the Gryphon, "And thank you for getting him here so quickly, Penna. My ladies-in-waiting will help you find a place to rest."

The Gryphon inclined his head to her, murmuring acceptance, and Susan took Edmund's arm. "Lucy?"

"Somebody had to mind the castle, and I won the argument. I'm going to pay for that victory for the next five years, let me tell you."

The queen pressed her lips together at this bit of levity, and Edmund raised his hands in surrender. "Pax, sister, pax. I'm scared, too."

"Come," Susan said, softening, "let's get you warmed up, and I'll tell you what we know thus far."

Nobody noticed a quick, commanding glance that the king threw one of the milling courtiers, a Ferret, before he followed his sister deeper into the camp. The Ferret didn't nod back or otherwise demonstrate he understood the sign, but several moments after the royal siblings left, he dropped his assigned task and slipped closer to the royal tent.

"The scene was most unnatural," the Queen was saying later in front of the fire, low and fast. "Peter's blood on the tree - yes, I know that you'll ask, and one of the Leopards who was with him on the campaign confirmed it was Peter's - but no body, no marks on the ground, and neither the Cats nor the Dogs could follow the scent."

"Could he have been taken by somebody from the air?"

The Queen spread her arms. "We've thought about it, but there's simply nobody the appropriate size in the woods, and you'd notice somebody like that living nearby."

"Yes," Edmund said, "and I would know, too…"

The Ferret appeared at that moment with a flagon of spicy mulled wine for the king. One of the ladies-in-waiting came closer to murmur something to Susan, and so the Queen missed the quick, almost soundless report the Ferret delivered to Edmund as he passed the wine over.

After the courtiers withdrew, Susan turned back to Edmund. "And to think that all this time I worried that my brother was his own worst enemy." She dug her fingers painfully into Edmund's arm; he stiffened in alarm but made sure to keep his face neutral. 

The old, childish name slipping from the lips was the only concession to his anxiety. "Su?"

"I was so worried for him, Ed. Almost no sleep, and the nightmares, and he would barely talk, and he would wind up tighter with every household we'd pass."

"He is the High King, sister," Edmund said. "It's his job to answer for the land."

His words were mild, but he was watching Susan sharply and did not seem surprised by the anger of her response.

"Aslan's Mane, Edmund, not you too! When have I challenged Peter's authority? But he's the High King, not Aslan himself, and he's not responsible for the very air and water of Narnia."

They were gathering an audience, Edmund saw: Agrius, with three other Centaurs he was not familiar with; Dariy, the Leopard at the head of Peter's personal guard, looking crestfallen; two Borzoi, army scouts if Edmund was not mistaken. Susan, however, who lost her temper extremely rarely and never easily, took no immediate notice of their presence.

"It's a drought," she said, vehemently. "You watch the sky and you conserve the water and you help your neighbors and you bury your dead and you bear and live through it, Edmund. But the way Peter carried himself, you’d think it was fault for not slaying the famine in a duel. He ought to know better!"

"Well put, Your Majesty," Agrius said, bowing to her, and Susan flushed and set her back straight.

"My apologies," she said, smoothing her voice, and if not for the hectic spots of color in her cheeks, one would be hard-pressed to say she was agitated. Being Rabadash' guest, Edmund thought, had taught her maybe too much about controlling her appearance.

The company gave their bows, wisely choosing to make no further comment, and Susan ceded the interrogation to Edmund.

"Of course, Your Majesty, we've searched the forest," Dariy said. "The good centaurs here helped us to form a grid, and we made sure there was somebody good at picking up the scent with every searching party. But there was no trace of him anywhere."

Agrius introduced his three companions - Nessos, Aiestes, and Pylenor - but their report was just as bleak. "We know the forest, Sire," Agrius said, "and not a corner of it was left undisturbed."

Edmund inclined his head to them. "Who would attack the High King here, in the heart of his own country?"

His eyes flickered between the members of their company, missing nothing, as everybody looked at each other, silent.

"Regretfully," one of the Centaurs said, "there are still - despite the efforts of Your Majesties - some followers of the White Witch in Narnia. Perhaps one of them saw fit to settle their grudge."

"Our brother," Edmund said, slowly, "is deservedly known as the best swordsman in all of Narnia and Archenland, and perhaps beyond their borders, too. And ever since Ettinsmoor - oh, don't frown at me, sister, we don't have the luxury of guarding Peter's dignity right now - you know as well as me that ever since Ettinsmoor he's been on high alert, day or night, kept his sword close, and watched every shadow."

He and Susan had never got the knack of the quick, unvoiced understanding he and his younger sister had built over time; but just then he saw her eyes widen in horror, and knew she understood.

"Who," he said again, leaning toward his audience, "would best Peter in a fight but a person he had no reason to suspect? But somebody he knew?"

The outrage that erupted at his words was so loud it startled the entire camp; the courtiers flocked to the fire before Edmund chased them all away with a sharp flick of his hand. He never took his eyes from the scene before him.

"Impossible," Dariy was growling, "impossible! Sire, I beg of you - you would accuse one of us?"

"Who would dare," the older Borzoi panted, "who? What kind of filthy - impossible - traitor!"

"Traitor," Edmund said, quietly, and in his lips, the word brought about an immediate and startling silence, "is such a complicated word."

Agrius, who had taken no part in the group outburst, looked at him levelly. "But with a heavy heart, I must agree with your reasoning, Your Majesty. It's been weighing on my mind too. But who, and why?"

"The land is devastated," Edmund said. "Despite all our efforts, there is the dead who will not come back, and places that will not recover in our lifetime. Perhaps the grief is hard to take without finding someone to blame."

His sister gasped next to him. "Who would blame Peter?"

The twilight was falling around them, and the king turned to her and took her cold hands. "Did you not say it yourself, sister? Our brother blamed himself. Why wouldn’t somebody else do as well?"

"Unforgivable," Agrius whispered.

"Who knows," Edmund said, quietly. "I was forgiven once."

Agrius inclined his head to him, but continued undeterred. “I beg your pardon, my King, my Queen. But my fear for His Majesty grows larger by the moment, for one who cannot bear their grief without taking it out on another must follow some twisted paths to avoid knowing themselves, and may thus be crueler than one who simply means harm." 

“You might be right,” Edmund said, carefully not noticing who in Agrius’ retinue blanched at the old Centaur’s words. He pushed to his feet, biting his lip when his stiffened muscles protested the motion. "Good Agrius, I must ask you to bring all your people to the camp, so I may ask my questions. Dariy, please gather everybody in the royal train as well. I fear that we're out of time."

Agrius bowed low before him and Susan, and disappeared into the night. Dariy, growling quietly in his throat, saluted and slunk away, his ears flattened against his skull, the disquieted Dogs following in his wake. And Edmund, swaying on his feet as the fatigue and sadness caught up to him, took Susan's hand and said, quietly, "Wait."

She looked at him in mute question, but stayed silent; he gave a grateful squeeze to her fingers. The camp around them buzzed with questions, growls, unhappy exclamations. Incongruously, through all the noise Edmund suddenly heard the careless song of a night-dwelling frog, and it made him long for the rain so badly he bit his tongue until he tasted blood.

"Wait," he said again, more to himself and his hope than to his sister, and - just as she turned to him to demand an explanation - the Ferret melted out of the shadows.

"Sire," he said quietly, bowing, "as you've thought, Aiestes slipped from the group on the way back; my brothers are following him."

"Oh thank Aslan," Edmund muttered, fervently. "I was afraid he'd have enough sense to stay away from the search council - call the Leopards, quick, there's not a second to waste."

Susan shouted to the guards and then whirled onto him. "How did you know?"

"It had to be a Centaur," Edmund muttered, checking his scabbard, "nobody in your party knows enough magic to obscure a hiding place big enough to hold Peter that well. And my informant told me he's lost friends recently - an orchard of Dryads - and become strange afterward, and kept overmuch to himself. But I didn't know for sure, not until now."

"But what will he do?"

"For his own sake," Edmund said, grimly, and took the torch that one of the assembling guards passed him, "I hope he'll do what's right."

* * *

All through the day the High King hung in his bonds, exhausted by his outburst to the point of oblivion. He drifted a while, his mind conjuring images of war and peace alike; sometimes walking the green valleys of Narnia with his royal sisters and his brother, laughing and talking of things sweet and forgotten; sometimes fighting for his life in the grim marshes of Ettinsmoor; sometimes between, and then the Giants smashed their ways through the Narnian forests, and it was Edmund or Susan or even Lucy, standing over him with a raised weapon, preparing to strike. He chased peace among his dreams, and it eluded him. 

The third night fell. His thoughts were suddenly clear and crisp, his own once again. "Well, Peter," he said to himself. "You won't last much longer; you've got to decide."

If only there was a sign! He knew how to do his duty, however unpleasant or terrifying it might be; his knighthood had begun with terror and wolf blood on the green grass. But no clear path presented itself, and no gentle voice spoke into his ear, and his brother and sisters were far, far away. If ever there was the darkest hour of the night for Peter Pevensie, the High King of Narnia, it was at that moment; and he'd never felt more lonely.

He wished he could have seen the stars in the cloudless, moonless sky for the last time; see and hope that somebody - Lucy, Susan, Edmund - was looking at them as well, to imagine the thread tying them together. But he could not muster the strength to crane his head high enough up to gaze at the sky.

"I'm sorry," he said, finally, and the world did not fall around him. "It will be worth it."

It seemed as if the air itself around him grew colder, and pressed closer; something within the stone circle was listening to him, eagerly, was whispering to him in gentle, cajoling tones. He could almost hear the sound of rain falling; the sweet chime of cascading water. So close, Peter thought; worth so little; just his life and grace. Were they not Narnia's to take? Yes, the sweet voices of the clearing said, yes, of course, yes - so right - so noble - yes, yes…

He opened his mouth, and the words - ancient words that he had never known before - crowded on his tongue, ready to spill out. A breath of air and -

The memory came over him with a force of a winter gale; he saw Edmund's face - young, childish, milk-white, tight-lipped, terrified, determined. On that green field where Jadis had delivered her ultimatum, and where Peter held his breath and waited for Edmund to come forward and offer himself as a sacrifice, to pay his traitor's due - and where Peter knew that he would die before allowing it to happen, no matter the cost.

He gasped, coming back to himself. Edmund was in Cair Paravel, safe and sound, a young man, a just king, a sweet brother. Edmund, whose life had been bought at a price none of them could even dream of asking for.

"Oh," Peter murmured - and accepted his surrender.

The king sighed deeply; he bowed his head to his chest, and let his eyes slip shut.

* * *

The High King slept deeply, finally beyond the clamor of his tortured body. He would have slipped into a deeper and darker sleep without noticing it, and the history of Narnia would have been much changed - had not Aiestes, looking as if the Furies were chasing him, burst into the clearing, not an hour later.

"Sire," he shouted, his hooves thundering the stones and dirt of the clearing. "Sire! Oh, stars."

He could barely recognize the king; the man tied to a burned tree looked dead, the skin of his face pulled tightly over his bones, the eyes sunken, the hands pulled into tight claws in their bonds. And so Aiestes saw the deed of his hands and wept with sorrow and shame.

"Please," he said. "Please, Sire; I was mad with grief and rage, and so told myself I was righteous when all I wanted was to hurt. Please let me be not too late." There was no time to deal with the chains; he fumbled for the waterskin at his belt, and poured the water into his cupped palm, and brought it to his king's mouth.

For Peter the taste of the water was like hearing his name called in a loving voice, or a familiar song. He was far gone, farther than he ever had gone before, and he saw the mountains of the wondrous country by the end of the world; but the call of the water was too sweet.

He drank it; and he opened his eyes to the first rays of sunrise.

"It wasn't mine to give," he said, quietly. 

Aiestes knelt by his feet, and over his bowed head, Peter saw the bright splash of colors beyond the stone pillars and knew that his family had found him after all.

* * *

The High King pardoned Aiestes the Centaur for his crimes right there by the burned tree, before he was even freed from the chains; it was, in fact, the last thing Peter did before slipping back into unconsciousness. Normally Queen Susan, who could stand no execution, however well-deserved, would’ve been pleased with his mercifulness, but even she felt that perhaps more justice would’ve been in order. The state her brother was reduced to shook her deeply, and aroused deep anger in her heart. 

It might have been the first time she openly countermanded the High King’s direct order, if not for Edmund, who stayed her hand. “Hold, sister,” he whispered into her ear, “look at this wretched Centaur; could you devise a more bitter punishment than his own skin?”

(Nobody did Aiestes any harm, but the Centaur soon chose exile out of shame over his actions. He traveled far and wide in search of atonement, and eventually found it - but that is a different story.)

The royal train set out to Cair Paravel, its passage torturously slow, for every attempt was made not to jolt the wagon where the King tossed and muttered in feverish, pained sleep. His brother and sister sat by him, soothing him, holding his hands, squeezing water into his parched mouth and smearing salve over his badly burned skin. Their retinue - the Leopards of the private guard first, and then the rest of the talking Beasts - shared their water rations with their King freely, despite Edmund’s prediction that once he was awake, Peter would be furious with them for it. 

“No he will not,” the Queen said, darkly, and no more was said on the matter. 

When they were finally in sight of the walls of Cair Paravel - a much poorer vision than that would usually be, with the Great River delta half-empty and the orchard trees drooping and dry - Queen Lucy, unable to wait anymore, rode out to meet them, and flung herself into the wagon. She saw Susan and Edmund first, both exhausted and heartsick, and Peter between them - brought lower than she had ever seen him - and burst into tears despite her best intentions. Her sister and brother reached for her, and in the confusion of their reunion, they almost missed Peter ascending from the deeper sleep of recovery into a nightmare. 

It was Lucy who heard him gasping; she swallowed her tears and called for him, as lightly as she knew how, until he opened his eyes. 

“Lucy,” he said, and smiled at her; the smile broke the scabs on his lips open. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Waiting for you, brother,” she said. And, although she could never later say what prompted her, she asked what they'd learned not to ask anymore. “What have you been dreaming about?”

“Ettinsmoor,” Peter said, and reached for her hand.

* * *

The drought continued to plague Narnia for many more days. Not many songs were written about that time, but those that were told tales of perseverance and kindness, not despair. Narnians worked together to survive its grim harvest - sharing food, fighting for the crops and livestock, finding new ways to conserve the water, doing their utmost to preserve the forests - and mourned their dead, and held their hope, and survived. 

And among those songs were the ones of the Gentle Queen staving off the Narnians' hunger, and the Just King making sure no piece of knowledge was lost or forgotten, and the Valiant Queen steadfastly cheering the Narnians through the darkest days, and the High King toiling alongside his subjects to save all that could be saved, and grieving for what could not be. 

On the sixty-eighth day, the rains came back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Morbane, Edonohana, crabapplered and song-of-staying for making this story so, so much better than it was in the beginning. You're the best. 
> 
> The title comes from Wovenhand's _Whistling Girl_.


End file.
